The Color Red
by storywriter853
Summary: A glimpse into Scarlet and Wolf's life together after Winter.


The color red, Wolf had long decided, was a good color.

It was the color of, quite obviously, tomatoes. Ripe, juicy tomatoes that he and Scarlet picked straight off the vine. Whenever he bit into the plump, smooth surface of a tomato, the juice ran down his chin as the distinctive flavors exploded in his mouth. The flavors tasted of their garden, of the farm, and most importantly, home.

Red was a color that he associated with his beloved Scarlet. She had explained to him that her name was another word for red, and her Grand-mere had chosen her name because of her fiery hair.

Red was the color of sunsets. It was so grand a sight to see the sun sink beneath the horizon, to catch the exact moment when the last sliver of daylight disappeared. When this happened, the color of the sun changed from blinding white to a bright red, streaking the sky in all shades of red, orange, and pink. The first time Wolf saw a sunset, sitting atop a grassy knoll with Scarlet, he said in wonder, "I thought things only looked like this in paintings."

Red was the color of another food he discovered one day while in the garden. "Scar!" he cried, astonished at the sight of the lumpy, misshapen object that he had found on a vine. It was the color of a tomato, but it had seeds freckled all across it. "That's a strawberry," his wife had laughed. "It's a type of fruit. It's sweet and delicious, Wolf, try it." After eating one, he hadn't been able to stop and officially declared strawberries his favorite fruit.

Red was the color of Scarlet's lipstick, the kind she wore for special occasions like Cinder and Kai's wedding. It was kept in a special tube that said Cherry Burst on the side, but it looked like plain old red to Wolf. Red was also the color of the mark she left on his cheek when she kissed him at the wedding.

Red was the color of the wild poppies that bloomed in their fields. There were hundreds of them, all nestled in a bed of tall green grass. For their anniversary, Wolf went to pick a bouquet of the poppies. Lifting them to his nose to look closer, he saw the exquisite, rich redness of the petals and the tiny black seeds sprinkled among the flower's center. After attempting to tie the bouquet with a red ribbon and crushing nearly half the blossoms, he gave up and just presented them to Scarlet in a haphazard pile. She loved the gift. But Wolf was more pleased about the fact that he had finally found a flower that didn't make him sneeze.

Red was the color the leaves of trees turned in autumn. More like red-gold, actually. When Wolf woke up in the morning and saw the abrupt change from green to brown and red and orange, he was shocked. Scarlet had explained the insane Earthen leaf cycle to him just in time before he lost his mind thinking that the trees were dying. As the days passed, leaves began falling from the trees. After a bit of hesitation, Wolf began stomping around and plunging into the leaf piles just like the little neighbor children. It was double the fun when Scarlet joined him, and they had wrestling matches among the crunching leaves.

Red was the color Scarlet and Wolf had decided to paint the farmhouse. After years of deterioration, the previous coat of paint was barely visible under layers of dirt and grime. They took Scarlet's podship into town to buy paint. Like any married couple, they argued for a while, before finally settling on classic barn red. Painting the house was hard work. Since Wolf was taller than Scarlet, he got up on a ladder to paint the higher parts of the farmhouse and put the paint can on the step next to his feet. Somehow, his clumsy limbs managed to knock everything down, and he was sent crashing to the ground as the bright red paint spilled over everything. It completely drenched him, and he spent the next hour furiously scrubbing it off while Scarlet secretly took pictures on her portscreen.

Red was the best color. After all, it was the first and foremost color of the rainbow, and being first meant it was the best, didn't it? So when his beautiful little daughter was born, bearing Scarlet's mess of red hair and his intelligent green eyes, they could think of no better name than Red.

Red Maha Kesley. Since red was a good color, this little girl was destined to have a good life. At that moment, Wolf vowed to give his daughter all the opportunities, the gifts, the kindness he and Scarlet had never had.

Red was a lucky name.


End file.
